1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and method which are capable of storing, for example, two-dimensional image data, and performing rotation processing, mirroring, or the like on the stored image data at a high speed.
2. Background of the Invention
In recent years, with increases in the resolution of image data and the processing speed of an apparatus for processing image data, the transfer rate of image data in an image data processing apparatus has rapidly increased. On the other hand, an image memory used to retain and edit image data has been indispensable for the processing apparatus. In this situation, it may be difficult to increase the write/read rates of data with respect to a memory so that the rates are equal to transfer rates of the image data. In order to realize such high write/read rates, high-speed memory access is required.
In order to realize high-speed access to a memory, various functions have been devised-for the memory device and put into practice.
A conventional access speed is not sufficient for edition and processing of image data, e.g., rotation or mirroring of stored image data. A memory device generally has a memory plane as a two-dimensional space. In case of editing and processing image data, control to write and read successive image data in/from the memory plane from arbitrary directions must be continuously performed. In a memory device capable of high-speed access, the continuous access in the row direction has been performed at a very high speed. However, owing to the structure of the memory device, it is difficult to greatly increase the speed of continuous access in the column direction. For this reason, high-speed, and continuous control to write/read data in/from the memory plane from arbitrary directions cannot be performed.